Claudias

The chatroom site is still open. I visit it every day but never see anyone else. Could Moderators please put link back into Messenger window?

Sorry Frances 144. I am not very good at editing quotes. I will try to do better.

I have many properties and have a TV licence for every one of them, there is no need to feel sorry for anyone who has been caught for not having a TV licence....it is simply their problem, they know the law if they don’t want a licence don’t get a TV SIMPLE.

 

Wealth does make a difference.

My various browsers all have Shetlink set as the home page so this site is visited many times each day. So,Shetland News is always available and a quick click on Home gives me the BBC news,an excellent arrangement. Thank you gents.

Maybe it is not so much a dislike of foreigners, more a dislike of foreigners taking over every aspect of our lives!

 

Like becoming another state of the good old US of A? We already submit to Dubya.

 

We always have, ever since they baled us out of two World Wars, the big mistake was to try to submit to, and dance to the tune of Brussels at the same time, and that's before trying to appease every whim of the droves of ex-Empire nationals in our midst. No wonder old Britannia is self destructing, no man can serve two masters, nor can you please all of the people all of the time, if Britain want's to have a furture, she needs to stop being the filling in the sandwich between the US and Europe and figure where her priorities and allegences lie, and get behind them.

In the sixty years since I left school it seems that history books have been totally re-written. Your version and mine are like chalk and cheese.

And it seems that you have never been in the services. There,every man is your master and when told to jump you daren't even ask "How high" You start jumping. By the way.Old Brittania died before I was born.

Maybe it is not so much a dislike of foreigners, more a dislike of foreigners taking over every aspect of our lives!

Like becoming another state of the good old US of A? We already submit to Dubya.

The United States of Europe is a far more volatile and dangerous beast than the United States of America, just look at the history of each member state, particularly the main players.

 

A leopard doesn't change it's spots, and this one is just biding it's time to pounce. I daresay if the private thoughts of many of the U.S.E's neighbour's could be known, the beast it already comprises of makes them very nervous for their future.

My my GR. You don't like foreigners much,do you?

Heya,

 

It was only ever put up as a test. No-one used it to any extent so we removed it. You are the first person to notice!

I tried it many times but could never see what I was typing. The strip was hidden under the main box. Get a few interested and we might be able to set up video chats on Skype or iChat.

What happened to the Instant Messager? There is no notice in the Messenger window yet, if i log in /php121im.php, I can sit for hours waiting for someone to join me.

If public agencies like the Council want to know why people leave rural areas (and then develop solutions - if there are any - to address the issue) then they do indeed need to engage the folk who have left and not just those who are still there. As well intentioned as they may be, providing fixed links, decentralising jobs or improving public transport as means of arresting rural depopulation may be no more than misguided solutions (and potentially expensive ones at that) if the bright lights and social attractions of towns and cities - whether Lerwick or further afield - are the real reasons why many folk choose to leave.

 

An email survey of SIC employees would be a good first start but would be limited to folk who have moved to live and work in Lerwick as opposed to those who have moved to live there but work elsewhere. I know a number of folk who were brought up in the North Isles/North Mainland who have moved to Lerwick whilst continuing to work at SVT for example - which suggests to me that the attractions (?) of the town for some folk at least must extend to more than just a place to find work.

Isn't it easy to demonstrate a point by generalising.

When my late wife was a child in Unst,in the early thirties,it was traditional for the boys to go to sea and the girls to go into service. Work,not bright lights drew them away. When the RAF came in the fifties and the RoRo ferries in the seventies far fewer youngsters had to leave home and some came back after university.

When isles people obtained jobs at SVT they had to make a choice of staying where they were and risk not being able to get across in adverse weather,or move to the mainland. House prices and availability decided wether they stayed in Brae or Lerwick. When Unst airport closed,several families had to make that decision at short notice. Scatsta or South.

Provide fixed links to the islands and I am certain that a good many of the retired/moderately wealthy citizens of the fair Lerwick would buy property in the isles to escape all the problems of town life. Lerwick is fine if you only have to visit for entertainment.

To address this before it gets too engrained:

The images contained no pylons because there will be no pylons associated with the Viking Windfarm project. Full Stop..

Is this because Viking Windfarm projects responsibilities end at the perimeter fence?

Apologies. I'm just too impatient.

Why are Distortio's pictures not showing on my Mac?

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/nintendo/links/4615

Just found this on YouTube

Let's see if we can persuade Marlin to get some to complement the bonny models he already stocks. I'd certainly buy one.

My point pertained to hypothetically doing it between 1990 and present, the timeline currently at issue in this debate.

What goes around comes around. Ireland one year,Iraq another. Iran next?

Or maybe North Korea. I hope that Dubya makes a decision soon or Tony will not be able to assist him.

If, the above occured, after, purely hypothetically speaking of course, we'd one day decided to just go of and invade and occupy Southern Ireland, or France, or Belgium, or some such,

 

Some wee while ago we invaded Northern Ireland,kicked out as many of he Catholics as we could and replaced them with loyal Protestants. There was no suggestion of ass kicking from any other nations.

Did the UK really have an option but become something of a "stooge" to the US post WWII, we were in hock to them worse than a hopeless alcoholic running a bar tab, without them we'd not have seen 1945. It's called having a little respect for a friend who hauled your ass out of a mire just as you were about to go under. As for egging the US on at the moment, and whether a situation is honourable or not, depends on individual opinion, as I see neither.

Your ideas of what the Americans did to 'haul our asses out of the mire' and mine are completely different,and I lived through it. They saw an excellent opportunity to sell us arms at highly inflated prices and took full advantage. The reason why they finally sent troops to our aid was to protect their investments. Had the Germans won,they would have lost all those billions of dollars.

An excellent find James

Ratchet and Clank 4 would sell a PS3 to me.

Why is a small sample worthless?

 

The research involved 3 groups, with 4 children in each group. It is not safe to generalise and assume that a small group of 4 is representitive of the whole population. But more of a worry is that (as reported in the Scotsman) the test of accuracy of Shetland dialect seemed to be how much air one puffed out on saying the letters b or p.

 

Whit Shetlander waas ever perskit aboot a peerie thing lik dat?

You are the one generalising. Where did the report state that the sample was representative of the whole population? The sample was of sufficient size and consistency to test the validity of the theory. They were not testing the accuracy of the Shetland dialect,rather the Shetland pronunciation. Shetlanders are not perskeet about the way they breath on the letters b or p because they learn,from birth,to do it naturally. That is,unless their parents insist on speaking English to them.

I widna a towt dat tryin tae git aa bairns tae spik dialect wid wirk - deres dat mony sooth bairns or bairns dats fok is fae sooth dat it widna be fair tae try an get dem aa tae spik shetlan'.

 

According to researchers at Queen Margaret University College, it seems that the 'sooth bairns' spik better dialect than the natives!

 

English keep the Shetland dialect alive

 

Worthless research!. A study involving 12 subjects, while interesting, is too small a percentage of the population to reach any conclusions.

Why is a small sample worthless? If you go to a food stall at a trade fair you are not given a whole side of salmon to munch,you get wafer thin slices to savour.

The point of the excercise seemed to be testing how well various children coped with the intricacies and pecculiarites of Shetland pronunciation. If all the children were taught by the same teachers,the point about regional variations is not valid. The conclusions were that,the South children, coming fresh to the accent, tended to concentrate more on the correct pronunciation than the Scots and Shetland bairns who were already familiar with it. All the rest about South bairns speaking better dialect and keeping the dialect alive is just media spin.

I have long been convinced that the average Shetland person feels real hatred when they hear a Soothmoother trying to speak a few words of dialect.

http://www.northmavine.com/activities.htm

8O

Yes, I think that particular trow, snapped when caught off-guard having a nap in the hills, goes by the name of Hans. I think he may be a trow of German descent. He has actually been spotted in various locations in Northmavine, particularly the Eshaness area. He is a trow of a benevolent nature I believe, so walkers need have no fear...

 

Hans' surname,loosely translated, means 'Stout (or plump) Njugle"

[You must have a poorly paid job Ghostrider if you would not pay fifty pounds per week to keep it.

 

If I did work, or were considering working in Lerwick, I'd see far more sense in putting that £50/week in to some sort of bricks and mortar in the town, even if it were just a lock-up garage, rather than holding a match to it for 50 miles every day. At least I'd be retaining that funds to recoup later. Besides, what price retaining whatever little sanity I may still be holding on to, commuting exactly the same 50 miles per day every day is a fast track production line to losing your mind in my book.

 

I don't have any solid facts about the financial situation of the newcomers here but I suspect that a fair number have sold expensive properties South and are well in pocket after buying a house here.

 

I have no doubt, and I'm sure we've all had those sorts in our respective neighbourhoods many times over the last 30 years, but they don't seem to stay permanently any better than those who are forced through lack of choice to move to a given neighbourhood. Certainly those who choose to move somewhere, rather than are forced to move somewhere, tend to be slightly longer term, but very, very few ever stay long enough to be considered permanent. I hope you're right, that most who have moved, and will move in the future, to Unst and anywhere else that hs seen significant depopulation, do become permanent residents, it's just about the only way a lot of the islands and smaller townships have of surviving. However, I cannot but help see the Papa Stour model of the last 40 years, which has been repeated on a smaller scale for a shorter period in Foula, becoming superimposed upon other islands and remoter townships. That, people of all walks of life are attracted to move there, apparently by the fantasy and/or the romanticism of the concept, rather than the reality of it, and in a relatively short period of time that reality has killed the fantasy and romanticism stone dead, and they move on.

 

How many non-indiginous Papa Stour people have moved in to the isle in the last 40 years? How many of them remain resident there today, and of those who are, how long have they been there? I rest my case. Certainly a few have remained in Shetland as what could be called permanent residents, which has been good for Shetland as a whole, but it has contributed only minimally to Papa, it's pretty much in the same position as it was 40 years ago, in that it has a small and declining permanent population. All that it has gained is to be a transit camp, mostly for itinerants, which shows an apparently healthier population number at any one given time, and it no doubt cumulatively contributes somewhat to the viability of the isle over time, but it is no solution. As far as the underlying trend goes, Papa's ass is still in the same sling as it was in in the 60's.

Just like last time,we are bandying words at each other without getting anywhere. The Shetland Islands are a place which incomers either love or detest on very short acquaintance. I came here 36 years ago on a 2 year tour and have no intentions of leaving and there are many like me. Papa Stour has only been used as a place to get away from the rat race for a while; Fine if you have a private income but impossible if you hope to exist as a crofter.

Once again. Let's just agree to differ.

Not one of you has mentioned communication. If roads were extended to the outer isles,by means of bridges or tunnels,so that people could easily commute from end to end of the county I think that you would find that many would drift out of town,back to the rural areas. People who can't commute tend to move into the centre so that they can access all the expensive facilities which are only viable in the centre.

 

Folk will always drift towards the more populated areas that is why they became more populated in the first place. A bridge, tunnel, ferry or the invent of molecular transportation will make no odds to the folk that don't want to be in a place that can't employ them it just means it won't take them so long to go back to visit.

 

On the contrary. Unst has seen an influx of new residents since cheap, plentiful accomodation has become available. Millions of people wish to leave the crowded cities for an island in the sun. Even Lerwick residents would move out to the isles if they could commute to work in under an hour.

 

You're going to be pushing your luck to get all that far south in under an hour with a car/bus, even with the best of roads and conditions, and keep within the posted limits are you not?

 

Besides, how many of the influx is likely to stay long term, is it not more a case a lot of those people have taken a house in Unst or wherever though Hobson's choice, there simply being virtually none to be had in the town, and what few are are completely out of the reach of their budget.

 

I'm not disputing some will make the move out of choice, but I'd question if numbers will ever be sufficent to make a meaningful difference. From my own perspective, I'm only 40-45 mins out, but I'd much rather sleep in a car or doss down in someone's garage in town, than I would pay £50+ per week for fuel and spend 7.5 hours of my week, every week staring out some other guys tail lights just to have a job there and stay where I am. Certainly the bus is cheaper, but the time wasted on travelling is considerably longer, plus the athmosphere during the trip if it doesn't drive you crazy will have you fit for tying, out of sheer boredom if nothing else.

It is 51 miles from my house in Haraldswick to the Gilbert Bain Hospital. Tunnels or bridges would not add more than an extra ten miles and only short distances of that route are limited to less than 60mph so an hour,or there about is reasonable in decent weather.

You must have a poorly paid job Ghostrider if you would not pay fifty pounds per week to keep it. People South commute two or more hours each way,by car or rail,because they can't afford property in the area where they work. The salaries they draw makes the effort worthwhile. And. You would follow few tail lights on a trip from Unst to town.

I don't have any solid facts about the financial situation of the newcomers here but I suspect that a fair number have sold expensive properties South and are well in pocket after buying a house here.